The Juicy Details Of Anthony Bourdain's Love Life

He met his first love, Nancy Putkoski, in high school. And this is when the chef's bad-ass reputation formed. According to The New Yorker, Putkoski was "an older girl [...] who ran with a druggie crowd." Bourdain started running with them, too. After he graduated, he followed her to Vassar for college, but dropped out after two years and headed to culinary school.

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They didn't get married until their late twenties.

Bourdain and Putkoski sealed the deal in 1985. Throughout the 80s, Bourdain still turned to drugs regularly. In his book Kitchen Confidential, he wrote, "We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in at every opportunity to 'conceptualize'."

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The couple's vacations were nothing like the ones Bourdain takes now.

A profile of Bourdain in The New Yorker mentioned that he and Putkoski would save up enough money to go to the Caribbean every few years. But besides that, the two didn't do much traveling.

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Bourdain's sudden star power broke them.

Putkoski saw her husband's blossoming TV career as a threat to their marriage. "I felt like the whole world was opening up to me. I'd seen things. I'd smelled things. I desperately wanted more. And she saw the whole thing as a cancer," he said in an interview. The two divorced after 20 years of marriage.

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A fellow chef introduced Bourdain to Ottavia Busia.

Chef Eric Ripert met Busia when she worked as a general manager at Geisha, a restaurant in New York City. He thought she'd be a good match for Bourdain and set the two up. The couple hit it off, despite their 22-year age difference.

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They moved quickly — and got matching tattoos.

The pair's first date was at a cigar bar. Another early meet-up was at a seafood joint. "She ordered a 6-pound lobster. I sat there, enraptured, watching her suck every bit of meat from it," he spilled to Cosmo. Soon after that, they got matching tattoos — chef's knives.

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Bourdain and Busia had a busy 2007.

The couple welcomed a daughter, Ariane, on April 9, 2007. Just weeks later, on April 20, they exchanged vows.

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His busy schedule put a strain on their relationship.

Bourdain traveled constantly, and Busia admitted to the Miami New Times that her biggest challenge was "my husband's insane schedule." She didn't want anything to do with TV, plus they had a young child, so most of Bourdain's adventures were solo ones.

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Busia changed, and the couple grew apart.

In a piece Busia wrote for Lena Dunham's newsletter, she claimed Bourdain liked to joke that he married Sophia Loren but ended up with Jean-Claude Van Damme. She even kind of agreed. Busia took up MMA fighting after the birth of their daughter, and though Bourdain occasionally joined her, he didn't practice as competitively. Their interests diverged, and the pair split amicably in 2016.

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Bourdain claimed he was in no hurry to start dating.

"I’m in no rush to even think about that honestly," he told People right after his divorce from Busia.

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Bourdain found love again on the set of his new show.

Italian actress and director Asia Argento worked with Bourdain on an episode of Parts Unknown in Rome, and Page Six linked the two romantically by February 2017. They were spotted kissing on the street and walking hand-in-hand.

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Argento doesn't mind Bourdain's schedule.

She's busy, too, he says, commenting to People that the 42-year-old mom of two and he are "circus freaks."

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The two are happier than ever.

They go on constant adventures — often for episodes of Parts Unknown — and Argento often posts sweet photos of Bourdain to her Instagram.

Sarah WeinbergDeputy EditorSarah Weinberg is the deputy editor at Delish and has covered food, travel, home, and lifestyle for a number of publications, including Food Network Magazine and Country Living.

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